Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(19)
Forester looked at him questioningly. “Who did you give her to?” he asked.
“Lieutenant—well, I guess he’ll be Commander when I tell him—Toryu Miyata.”
Miyata had been a junior navigation officer aboard Amagi when she came to this world. Disillusioned by Kurokawa’s madness, and even sympathetic to the Allied cause after their heroic defense of Baalkpan Bay and Amagi’s destruction there, he’d defected to the Republic of Real People when, considered expendable, he’d been sent to deliver an ultimatum to the Republic to join the Great Hunt or become prey. Distracted by reverses at the hands of the Alliance, the Grik never pursued their threat against the (to them, frigid and undesirable) land of the Republic, and had apparently practically forgotten it, considering it a negligible threat. Hopefully, they’d soon be disabused of that notion. But after he warned the Republic, Miyata came east with Amerika and ultimately joined Laumer’s and Silva’s attack against the Celestial Mother. He’d been the most badly wounded member of the team to survive, nearly losing a leg to the jaws of a huge, terrible beast unleashed to guard the lower levels of the palace. Finally, accompanying his new friend Gunny Horn, he’d been one of the wounded aboard Amerika when she was sunk by Savoie. Immediately upon his rescue, he’d begged an audience with Alan Letts—and made his oath to the American Navy Clan.
Alan still remembered the sincerity—and intensity—of the interview, and shook his head now. “I may be wrong, but I don’t think Miyata’s being a Jap would much bother the Super Bosun anymore. He made his peace with Shinya, if you’ll recall, and knew Miyata had volunteered for the Cowflop stunt. That was a suicide mission if there ever was one, and it’s a miracle anyone survived.” He removed his hat again and ran a hand across short, sweaty hair. “And you know? I like to think Chief Gray was listening when I interviewed Miyata. If he was, I doubt he’d have any issue with the man’s motivations for joining us, after all he’s been through.” He grimaced. “And he damn sure wouldn’t doubt Miyata’s resolve to get even for Amerika—and the other stuff Kurokawa’s done. I don’t.” He looked at Forester. “So maybe you’re right. If Gray’s spirit is in that ship, combined with Miyata’s determination, I probably have been selling her short.”
CHAPTER 2
////// Occupied Grik City
North Mada-gaas-gar
“This is, hands down, the goofiest damn place I ever been,” Chief Gunner’s Mate Dennis Silva growled at Lawrence, his Grik-like Sa’aaran pal, as they strode along the top of an earthen berm on the southeast side of Grik City Bay. Silva was looking around at the modest fortification they walked on, the harbor to his right, what remained of the city and the huge structures ahead away from the waterfront. As usual, though the sky was relatively clear for once, it was hot and oppressively humid, without the slightest breeze. And being just below the equator, apparently a kind of spring was trying to kick in, as far as the local fauna was concerned. So in addition to the uncomfortable environment they’d grown accustomed to, new clouds of swarming insects had emerged to torment them wherever they went. They reminded Silva of mayflies—that bit—and there were different-colored ones almost every day. The annoyance they caused was balanced, however, by the fact that Petey absolutely loved them.
Petey was a weird, colorful little tree-gliding reptile—as much like a parrot as a lizard—that liked to ride the back of Dennis’s neck, draped around it like a loose bandanna. He was constantly snatching insects from the air with darting jaws and munching contentedly, making happy chomping sounds and dropping twitching legs and membranous wing fragments in their path. The endless buffet helped Dennis and Lawrence cope with the muggy climate and teeming bugs, because Petey had redefined gluttony, in Silva’s estimation, and anything that kept him fed—and quiet—was a blessing. What made Dennis uncharacteristically grumpy, however, was that he’d been ordered to clean up. Even that wouldn’t normally have penetrated his customary “malevolent cheerfulness,” as Courtney Bradford once described his personality. It was why, and for whom, that pissed him off.
Silva was tall, about six foot two, and powerfully built, and even his deeply tanned hands—the only visible skin besides what little of his face wasn’t covered by a sun-bleached beard—were crisscrossed with the scars of many fights. His most obvious wound hid behind a brand-new “dress white” canvas patch over his left eye that matched the rest of his best shore-going rig. Those who knew him might suspect the white eyepatch was his little way of protesting the rest of his garb, particularly since he’d slightly reinterpreted the prescribed uniform of the day. He’d added leggings, a helmet, and his ever-present web belt, festooned with a hard-used 1917 Navy cutlass, razor-sharp ’03 Springfield bayonet, and a 1911 Colt secured in a flap holster. Most of the rest of the belt was taken up by twin magazine pouches for the Colt. The only exception was space for a canteen and a small gap just large enough to accommodate an ornate, if somewhat battered, long-barreled flintlock pistol hanging by a belt hook. His philosophy was, dolled up or not, he’d needed each of those weapons many times and would never be caught without them. His sole concession to the spirit of his orders was that he’d left his primary weapon—a monstrous breech-loading rifle he called the Doom Stomper—in the tent he shared with Lawrence. The Doom Stomper was similar in appearance to the Baalkpan and Maa-ni-la Arsenal Allin-Silva “trapdoors,” except it was built around a turned-down 25 mm Japanese antiaircraft gun barrel. That made it just about twice as big as the standard .50–80 caliber Allied infantry arm in most dimensions, including bore diameter.